Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a cigarette tube injector, and more particularly to a cigarette tube injector which not only can make a tight and even injection to have a better quality of cigarettes, but also has an ultra compact size for enhancing the portability of the cigarette tube injector.
Description of Related Arts
The cigarettes consumed by people are normally manufactured by factories and are sold in market. A cigarette is a paper wrapped tube stuffed with finely cut tobacco leaves. Generally the tobacco leaves are cured and processed with addictives. There are many tastes and brands of cigarettes people can select because of the different types of tobacco leaves, different cure processes and addictives. But still some people want to smoke their own tobaccos.
For those people using their own tobaccos, they have to prepare their own cigarettes by rolling the paper to wrap their cut tobacco leaves inside. Doing this by hands takes a lot of time, and it is also difficult to stuff the tobacco leaves with a uniform and proper compactness. If the tobacco leaves are wrapped too compressed, it is difficult to smoke; if the tobacco leaves are wrapped too loose, it is easy to drop the tobacco leaves, and get the cigarette extinguished.
Currently there are machines can help people to make cigarettes with their own tobaccos, but there are some problems preventing these machine be used conveniently. Some of these machines still need the user to use hands. For example, a manual crank-type machine can be operated manually by filling the tobacco leaves into the crank nozzle such that when the crank nozzle is inserted into the cigarette paper tube, the tobacco leaves loaded therein. The advantage of the manual crank-type machine is that the tobacco leaves will not be shredded when the tobacco leaves are loaded in the cigarette paper tube. However, one of the drawbacks of the manual crank-type machine is that the injection is not automatic. The user has to use both hands and provides force. It is not convenient to use. Another drawback is that the tobacco leaves cannot be evenly loaded within the cigarette paper tube such that compactness of the cigarette is not uniform.
Some machines are driven by electric power. The tobacco leaves are injected automatically. But the problem is the size of this kind of machine is large. Particularly, the length of this kind of machine has to be more two times of the length of a cigarette. For example, such automatic machine generally has a chamber to contain tobaccos which will be injected into the cigarette paper tube. In order to fulfill the cigarette paper tube, the volume of the chamber is the same or little larger than the cigarette paper tube, and the length of the chamber is the same or a little longer than the length of the cigarette paper tube. At one end of the chamber is a nozzle which is inserted into one open end of the cigarette paper tube. At the other end of the chamber is a piston to inject the tobaccos inside the chamber into the paper tube through the nozzle. The piston is driven by a driving shaft, for example, as worm shaft. Because the piston will slide through the chamber from one end to another to push the tobacco leaves into the cigarette paper tube, the driving shaft at least has to be the same length as the length of the chamber. When the tobacco leaves are loaded into the chamber, the driving shaft has to stay outside the chamber and align with the chamber longitudinally. Considering the driving mechanism, the total length of this machine must be longer than the length of the driving shaft plus the length of the chamber which is at least two times of the length of a cigarette.
Another type of automatic machine incorporates with a spiral nozzle for delivering the tobacco leaves into the cigarette paper tube. However, when the spiral nozzle is rotated for delivering the tobacco leaves, the tobacco leaves will be shredded into small pieces within the cigarette paper tube. Therefore, when the cigarette is lightened, the cigarette ash cannot be held properly while smoking. It is a hassle for the smoker to hold the cigarette steadily to prevent the cigarette ash from falling everywhere. In other words, if the cigarette ash can be held properly by not shredding the cigarette leaves in the cigarette paper tube, the smoker can easily and precisely flick the cigarette ash in the ashtray.
Another cigarette making machine, such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,948, disclosed a pocket-sized machine for making cigarettes. The cigarette making machine generally comprises a casing defining a chamber at the front side, and an operating handle pivotally coupled at the rear side of the casing, wherein the operating handle is pivotally moved to the right side of the casing in order to drive a tobacco compacting member from an open position to a closed position for compressing the tobacco in the chamber.
Accordingly, the user must manually apply the pushing force at the operating handle to drive the tobacco compacting member to its closed position. The manual operation of the operating handle is safer than an automatic operation of the tobacco compacting member which is powered by a motor. The automatic operated cigarette making machine is that the user is able to press a button to activate the motor to drive the tobacco compacting member. If the button is accidentally pressed at the time when the tobacco leaves are fed into the chamber by the fingers of the user, the fingers of the user may be cut by the sharp edge of the tobacco compacting member.
However, this cigarette making machine has several drawbacks. Since the operating handle is pivotally linked at the rear side of the casing, the user must pivotally push the operating handle toward the first side of the casing in order to move the tobacco compacting member to its closed position. In other words, the user must securely hold the casing stably to withstand the pushing force at the operating handle. If the casing is not held stably, the pushing force at the operating handle will transmit to the casing so as to push the casing forward. As a result, the tobacco compacting member cannot be smoothly and completely moved to its closed position for evenly compressing the tobacco in the chamber.
Furthermore, the operating handle is connected to the tobacco compacting member via a single link member which has an elongated structure, wherein one end of the single link member is rotatably coupled at the operating handle while an opposed end of the single link member is rotatably coupled at a mid-portion of the tobacco compacting member. Therefore, by pivotally moving the operating handle, the single link member transmits the pivot movement of the operating handle to the linear movement of the tobacco compacting member. Since the pushing force is only exerted at the mid-portion of the tobacco compacting member, the tobacco compacting member cannot be linearly moved in a balanced manner. As a result, the tobacco compacting member cannot evenly compress the tobacco in the chamber, such that the quality of the cigarette made by the cigarette making machine cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, since the user must apply a relatively large force to drive the tobacco compacting member in order to compress the tobacco, the single link member must be rigid enough to transmit the force from the operating handle to the tobacco compacting member. Once the single link member is broken, the cigarette making machine will be abandoned.
Another drawback of the cigarette making machine is that a spring extends between the side of the casing and the operating handle such that the operating handle is pivoted against the action of spring to the closed position. In other words, at the open position, the spring will pull the operating handle toward the closed position. As a result, the concave leading edge of the tobacco compacting member is moved toward the chamber at the open position of the operating handle. Therefore, the size of the chamber cannot be maximized while the elongated aperture is covered by the concave leading edge of the tobacco compacting member. In other words, the user cannot fully utilize the chamber to fill the tobacco in the chamber through the elongated aperture. In addition, the concave leading edge of the tobacco compacting member is exposed within the elongated aperture, such that the concave leading edge of the tobacco compacting member may cut the finger of the user when the tobacco is filled and pressed into the chamber through the elongated aperture by the fingers of the user.
Another drawback of the cigarette making machine is that the cigarette making machine provides a tube retaining lever to retain the paper tube on the nipple during injection. During the injection, the tobacco in the chamber is pushed by the spoon in order to inject into the paper tube. If the tube cannot be held securely at the nipple, the paper tube will be pushed out of the nipple when injecting the tobacco. Therefore, the tip of the tube retaining lever can press against the nipple to hold the paper tube thereat during injection. However, the cigarette making machine did not provide any releasing mechanism to release the paper tube when the injection process is completed. In other words, at the time when almost all the tobaccos in the chamber are pushed and injected into the paper tube, the paper tube is kept holding at the nipple by the tube retaining lever. As a result, the paper tube may be torn off by the tube retaining lever by the injecting force when the tobacco is completely injected into the paper tube. A lack of release mechanism results in the maker giving it a weak hold on the tube to reduce the chances of tearing the tube. However, a weaker hold increases the chances of the tube not being filled properly.